1. Technical Field
The present invention relates in general to the data processing field. More specifically, the present invention relates to the field of Object Oriented framework mechanisms.
2. Related Art
The development of the EDVAC computer system of 1948 is often cited as the beginning of the computer era. Since that time, computer systems have evolved into extremely sophisticated devices, including complex combinations of hardware and software. Computer systems have been applied to a host of different applications. One such application is fulfillment requirements management, which describes the coordination of products offered, product availability, and order processing to get a product from the offering stage to a consumer through final delivery of the product to the consumer.
One example of an environment that typically uses a computer system to track and control products and orders is in the manufacturing of computer systems. Modern computer systems are relatively modular. Building a computer system requires assembling various hardware components together and loading various software components into the system, typically by installing the software components on a hard disk drive. A great number of different configurations are possible due to the large number of hardware and software components that may be provided. This results in a relatively complex manufacturing environment that must be able to accommodate the many possible computer configurations.
In most modern manufacturing environments, multiple software applications are used to support the fulfillment requirements of configurable products. This means that the configuration options and relationships are typically programmed in multiple different languages using multiple programming tools. As a result, information that needs to be communicated between different software applications in the order and product delivery system has been typically related in paper documents.
Using paper documents to relate information between software applications is inefficient, time-consuming, and prone to human errors. Information on a paper document may require entering the information in multiple different software applications. Document authors often omit details that may seem "obvious", leaving application developers to guess at the missing details. Each time the information is keyed in by a human operator, errors may result. In addition, the entry of the information into the software applications may become a bottleneck to system performance.
The lack of coordination of information between marketing a product to a consumer through processing the order and delivering a product that complies with the order yields great inefficiencies in industry today. Without a mechanism that allows these different software applications to communicate and share data, industry will never fully realize the benefits of computer automation in marketing through the production of products.